Spend Spend Spend!

0611john

I have had a sketchy history with Credit Cards, I got one when I was 18 and by 32 had extended the limit to almost 3.5K and was as the limit for a long time. I just couldnt pay it down. I had the persistent debt letters and ignored them and had my card cancelled. 

I recently moved house and was lucky enough to be able to take some equity from our first house and use this to pay off my credit card. Shortly after having my card re-activated by Natwest (now that the balance had been cleared), I received an email, "spend on your credit card to win a holiday". 

Am i being unreasonable here? I'm disgusted that they would send me this, they know what my history is. I used their complaints procedure and got "sorry your upset but we haven't done anything wrong" basically. I've complained to the ombudsman but I feel like I want to do more. I really think they need to be more careful about who they send this type of email to. 

Any advise on how else I can this investigated or covered would be very helpful. 

[Deleted User]

There's no further investigation that will take place. 

Generic messages such as that will go to anyone not currently in arrears. They could have more targeted, but it's nothing to lose sleep over. You're in charge of your spending - not them.

Puddles1983

Yes, you are being unreasonable.

The email doesn’t say “max out your credit card to win a holiday”.

If you don’t trust yourself with credit, the simple thing to do would be to cancel your card.

0611john

Puddles1983 said:

Yes, you are being unreasonable.

The email doesn’t say “max out your credit card to win a holiday”.

If you don’t trust yourself with credit, the simple thing to do would be to cancel your card.

Well, thanks for the sanity check I suppose. 

0611john

Deleted_User said:

There's no further investigation that will take place. 

Generic messages such as that will go to anyone not currently in arrears. They could have more targeted, but it's nothing to lose sleep over. You're in charge of your spending - not them.

They actually said that the email I received was sent to all credit card customers with marketing preferences switched on, I would imagine that this would include a lot of people already in a significant amount of debt. 

[Deleted User]

0611john said:

Deleted_User said:

There's no further investigation that will take place. 

Generic messages such as that will go to anyone not currently in arrears. They could have more targeted, but it's nothing to lose sleep over. You're in charge of your spending - not them.

They actually said that the email I received was sent to all credit card customers with marketing preferences switched on, I would imagine that this would include a lot of people already in a significant amount of debt. 

Yes, they'll only send to customer with marketing preferences.

But being in debt is obviously different from being in arrears.

Ebe_Scrooge

Yep, it does understandably come across as a bit insensitive, but it's nothing personal - just a mass-marketing advertising campaign that goes to all eligible customers.

To use the old chestnut - if someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?  Sorry, not meaning to be facetious, but it's quite an apt analogy.  Only do what's sensible.  From NatWest's point of view, it's quite a reasonable advertising ploy - if a person has a NW card and another card, for instance, they might decide to just switch their regular, routine spending to NatWest for the duration of the promotion.  Makes no difference to the customer, and NatWest get the extra business they're looking for.

But obviously, you should never spend what you cannot afford to repay, on any card, promotion or no promotion.

0611john

Ebe_Scrooge said:

Yep, it does understandably come across as a bit insensitive, but it's nothing personal - just a mass-marketing advertising campaign that goes to all eligible customers.

To use the old chestnut - if someone told you to jump off a cliff, would you do it?  Sorry, not meaning to be facetious, but it's quite an apt analogy.  Only do what's sensible.  From NatWest's point of view, it's quite a reasonable advertising ploy - if a person has a NW card and another card, for instance, they might decide to just switch their regular, routine spending to NatWest for the duration of the promotion.  Makes no difference to the customer, and NatWest get the extra business they're looking for.

But obviously, you should never spend what you cannot afford to repay, on any card, promotion or no promotion.

thank you, that last part of your post especially (switching your spending etc) makes a lot of sense and I hadn't really considered that. 
Being or having recently been in debt is quite polarising, thanks for the alternate point of view

ManyWays

It will be interesting to hear what the Financial Ombudsman says about this. You haven't actually lost anything by this - other people might have, but the Ombudsman often says its not their role to fine companies for bad behaviour, just to give you redress, and here you haven't actually lost anything.

MallyGirl

0611john said:

Deleted_User said:

There's no further investigation that will take place. 

Generic messages such as that will go to anyone not currently in arrears. They could have more targeted, but it's nothing to lose sleep over. You're in charge of your spending - not them.

They actually said that the email I received was sent to all credit card customers with marketing preferences switched on, I would imagine that this would include a lot of people already in a significant amount of debt. 

The people answering your query would likely have no idea what criteria were applied to the selection of customers to receive the campaign. Marketing is expensive so they will have applied filters to not contact people who wouldn't be in a position to spend (due to being near their limit, in dmps, in debt respite, etc).

born_again

Looking at Op limit @ 32 £3.5K. That is very low as by that age many have limits in the 10's thousands with very little income.
Op never mentions how many cards they have/had.

>> I just couldnt pay it down. I had the persistent debt letters and ignored them and had my card cancelled. <<

So, taking it that the OP only had one card & it was cancelled due to persistent debt & being unable to pay. That Nat West would reinstate a card given the situation is strange.

To then receive a email stating "spend on your credit card to win a holiday" is not a invitation to as the Op puts it Spend, Spend, Spend" Oh how Viv Nicholson wished she had never uttered them words 🤣

It is simply saying you can spend (singular) and stand a chance of winning a holiday. Of course maybe the more time you spend the more chances you stand of winning (but without knowing the T/C) that is just a guess.

FOS will not do anything at all. Complaints like this are one reason that real issues are taking so long to be resolved.

TBH. If the Op is that worried then they need to close the account and never touch any form of credit again.